Illinois’ new child welfare director will bring a long resume of human services leadership to an agency battered by scandals, management upheaval and the deaths of children in state care.

Beverly “BJ” Walker in the 1990s led efforts to reorganize Illinois’ human services agencies and won praise for piloting welfare-to-work programs that helped the state collect millions of dollars in federal performance bonuses.

Former DCFS Director George Sheldon resigned June 15 facing an ethics probe into contracts that benefited some of his political associates, as well as several high-profile child fatalities that highlighted the agency’s investigative shortfalls.

“She is not naive about what she is getting into — she is eyes wide open. You are getting someone who can hit the ground running,” said Howard Peters, a former director of the state’s human services and corrections departments who worked with Walker in the 1990s.

Walker also coordinated children and family services under then-Mayor Richard M. Daley for five years until 2004, when she took the helm of Georgia’s human services department. In that role she oversaw public aid programs and services to the elderly as well as child protective investigations. Georgia’s state human services agency had a combined budget of $3.4 billion and 20,000 staff members, according to state records.

Walker in March retired from Deloitte Consulting LLP where she served for five years as a managing director in the public sector practice, advising government and private health and human services and child welfare agencies.

Walker grew up on Chicago's South Side and lived in the Austin community, where she raised and adopted a foster child. She plans to return to that neighborhood, according to Rauner's office. She takes office as acting director on Monday and will assume the role permanently upon state senate confirmation. The job pays $150,000 annually.

Walker could not immediately be reached for comment on Friday.

“She comes in with established and very important working relationships,” said Jess McDonald, who ran DCFS from 1994 through 2003. “There won’t be a learning curve.”

Walker managed Gov. Jim Edgar’s effort to reorganize the state’s human services agencies before serving for two years as director of community operations for Illinois’ Department of Human Services. She worked closely with two officials who now serve as key Rauner cabinet members: James Dimas, who is secretary of the state Department of Human Services under Rauner, and Felicia Norwood, who heads the Department of Healthcare and Family Services.

“She is very sensitive to the Illinois scene, having spent a long time here,” he said. “She is long on wisdom. People listen to her when she speaks. I think she’ll make good choices about the people she’ll bring around her.”

Neither Dimas or Norwood responded to requests for comment Friday.

Some criticized Walker's human services agency in Georgia, saying it discouraged poor people from applying for welfare benefits and rejected those who failed to meet state job search rules or community service requirements. During Walker’s time there, the number of welfare recipients dropped dramatically, said Liz Schott, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“Her oft-quoted slogan was ‘Welfare isn’t good enough for any family.’ Her implementation of that philosophy was that very few families got welfare,” Schott said.

When Walker served as Daley’s chief of human infrastructure, she focused on linking the various city health and human services agencies that serve children and families, said Donald Dew, Executive Director of Habilitative Systems, Inc. (HSI), a West Side nonprofit.

“She knows how to integrate care for kids who have been abused and neglected and exposed to violence,” Dew said. “These are not one-dimensional people. They need a holistic perspective — they need social and emotional help, educational and health care.”

Margaret Berglind, president and CEO of Child Care Association of Illinois, stressed the importance of bringing in a director who will fight for new sources of revenue for DCFS.

“Everybody wants miracles from the Department of Children and Family Services and the child welfare system, and you cannot get those when you’re funding the system at non-miracle levels,” she said.

“They have to continue to pound the pavement both within the General Assembly and in D.C. for the kind of adequate funding the system needs to make the improvements we’re talking about.”

State Sen. Julie Morrison, D-Deerfield, told the Tribune that she and other legislators hope to meet with Walker early next week to discuss her goals and mission.

An ability to work across agency lines will be critical to the new director’s success, state Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, said.

“These agencies can no longer work in their independent silos,” Flowers said. “To give services to children, you need the rest of the state to help families — with jobs training, mental health services and temporary assistance.”

In contrast to Sheldon, who set goals and priorities but delegated many critical tasks, Walker “is very detail oriented and she will manage every piece of the organization,” said Bryan Samuels, who has worked with Walker in various capacities since he served as DCFS director from 2003 to 2007. "She brings it. She is very serious."

Peters, who said he considers Walker a friend, called her more than a good manager.

“BJ is a leader who is able to gather people and call them to a purpose,” he said. “She knows firsthand the challenges of children who have been separated from their birth parents. It gives her an understanding of the foster and adoptive systems that most leaders wouldn’t have.”